Climate foreign policy strategy adopted

Climate crisis - Climate foreign policy strategy adopted

At the end of the world's hottest year since weather records began, the German government has adopted a comprehensive strategy for its foreign climate policy. The 74-page paper describes combating the climate crisis and its fatal consequences as a "central human task of this century". According to the strategy approved by the cabinet on Wednesday, global warming is already endangering human lives in many places. Inequalities and distribution conflicts would be exacerbated, people would be forced to flee and conflicts would be fueled.

Germany is a pioneer with such a broadly formulated climate strategy - it is "the most comprehensive strategy worldwide", said State Secretary for Climate Action Jennifer Morgan in Dubai. The strategy also creates more transparency, especially for the public. And: "The German government is networking better and defining common goals and fields of action."

According to the strategy, the German government wants to "do all it can" to achieve the goal set in Paris in 2015 of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees compared to pre-industrial times. To achieve this, global emissions of climate-damaging greenhouse gases must be almost halved by 2030 compared to 2019, it says. Germany wants to accelerate the global energy transition in order to "gradually" phase out coal, oil and gas - unless the emissions can be captured and stored.

Support for poor countries

The phase-out of fossil fuels is a central point of contention at the current UN Climate Change Conference of almost 200 countries in Dubai. While more than 100 countries want to formally agree to this, a number are opposed - including oil states such as Saudi Arabia.

In the strategy paper, Germany also commits to supporting poor countries that are particularly affected by the consequences of global warming, such as more frequent and more severe droughts, forest fires, floods and storms. It remains a "good and reliable partner in international climate financing", it says. However, in view of the budget crisis, the German government is currently discussing possible cuts to such budget items. In particular, cooperation with rainforest countries is to be strengthened in order to halt deforestation by 2030.

According to the paper, foreign climate policy should also protect German interests and help to develop Germany and Europe as business locations. An ambitious climate policy should "not be a locational disadvantage that leads to the migration of important industries", it warns.

The managing director of Greenpeace in Germany, Martin Kaiser, said that the new foreign climate policy would lose all effect if the current budget crisis of the traffic light system were to lead to a collapse in international and national climate protection. "That is why all democratic parties in the Bundestag must now agree on a special fund of 100 billion euros for climate protection and innovation that is secured by constitutional law."

UN: Climate change is accelerating rapidly

Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock (Greens) said that in these geopolitically challenging times, climate policy is also an opportunity to overcome old rifts in power politics. "Those countries that work together and want to achieve something in climate policy have the chance to get everyone on board and lead the world onto the vital 1.5-degree path."

According to a new UN report, climate change accelerated rapidly in the warmest decade in recorded history from 2011 to 2020. More and more greenhouse gases in the atmosphere are causing "a turbocharged, dramatic acceleration of ice melt and sea level rise", as the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) warned at the World Climate Conference on Tuesday. According to the United Nations, the planet is heading for almost 3 degrees instead of 1.5 degrees by the end of the century - if all the pledges made by states are kept, which many experts doubt.